Author Archive

I had the luxury of spending time with the good-hearted folk heading up the Rich Dad franchise over the weekend. An old friend of mine Kelly Ritchie is the franchisor for Robert & Kim Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad company, and he was in New Zealand — briefly — to conduct a training for the local franchisees […]

from Nick Carr‘s ‘Roughtype’ blog (June 27, 2009) … The sour Wikipedian Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the fuel of online social production. That’s the conclusion suggested by a new study of the character traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of Israeli research psychologists gave personality tests to 69 Wikipedians and 70 […]

Definitely speech of the day … Rev Al Sharpton Speech at Michael Jackson’s Funeral: “…He out-sang his cynics. He out-danced his doubters. He out-performed the pessimists. Every time he got knocked down he got back up. Every time you counted him out he came back in. Michael never stopped…” Wow. I was and am very […]

SOME PEOPLE (including some who’ve made a living peddling property to others) seem to be just learning, or didn’t appear to fully realise that a property slump is NOT a separate incident from a general economic slump. The reason property sales volumes and values fall isn’t because a hand on some big cosmic clock ticks […]

…some thoughts on the news media, and a lesson from Barack Obama Following on from an earlier discussion about market cycles being driven by alternating waves of pessimism and optimism, I’d like to examine another angle of this ‘social mood’ aspect of the market, warn you about those who would exploit it… and pick up […]

Another hero has died. Michael Crichton had the grace to answer my correspondence, and share some advice for me as a writer in the mid 1990s. I was so encouraged. He was already famous, and I had read his books Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man in college. I’ve read almost everything he published, even the non-fiction. […]

What we can learn from the ‘turmoil’ of world financial markets: Experience counts. As the editor and publisher of two books on the effects of the property cycle (The Day the Bubble Bursts by Olly Newland and How to Survive and Prosper in a Falling Property Market) I take an interest in identifying the lessons […]

Yesterday I was one of several hundred who farewelled Doug Woodyard. He died on Thursday 17 April. Doug was a true pioneer and a straight operator in his property sourcing business — honest and as straight as an arrow. He was a moral and earnest soul who was perplexed when confronted by a lack of […]